[Lifer]

I recently read a statistic saying that oil production peaked in May of 2005, around 85 mbd. In the same article, it explained oil consumption in 2006 was around 86 mbd. How is this possible? Futhermore, how is it possible that there has been no increase in oil production since 2005, and yet there has been considerable global economic development since then. Would someone explain this to me???

[Leanan]

They've been drawing down stockpiles. Someone posted a graph showing this quite clearly.

[benrk]

Hi Lifer!

It's a pretty complicated matter to read & understand oil statistics.

1. There is no "real" or "certified" data out there, it's only estimates & better guesses.

2. There are different kinds of oil, e.g. crude usually means so called conventional light crude oil, no extractions from tar sands etc, "oil production" usually includes heavy oil & oil shales but not Liquified Natural Gas, which again is included in most "oil consumption" figures together with Biodiesel etc.

When you dig deeper into the numbers & how to read them you'll find that inspite (or because?) of many efforts towards renewables & alternative fuels we are excessively depleting stocks & conventional crude production & consumption of petroleum related products have already been out of balance for a couple of years, we already are a good bit into an energy crisis, the time of a "pending" energy crisis was almost a decade ago.

Greetz, Ben

[dooberheim]

There's also the issue of spare capacity (which there is very little of in the world at the moment - some say none). A country like Saudi Arabia can shut in some of it's producing wells if they are needed quickly, to even out prices in case of a shortfall somewhere else. This also helps rest them and can help increase a filds ultimate reserves.

But yes, the earth uses as much as it produces, and any shortfall has to be covered by drawing down inventory or withdrawal from strategic reserves.

DK

[FloridaGirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')uthermore, how is it possible that there has been no increase in oil production since 2005, and yet there has been considerable global economic development since then.

[aahala]

In addition to what others have said, it may be that the consumption figures are based upon product, as they appear
to be in the US.

The volume of product one gets from a 42 barrel of crude is
usually more, about 44 or so gallons, as the refined product
is less dense than the original crude.

There is a slight oddity in some of the petro figures for the US,
as reported by the EIA. Some of the data includes ethanol
and other biofuels in the oil figures(and also in the renewable
figures as well), without separating them. The EIA doesn't
count bios twice in their total energy figures however.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dooberheim', '(')...)

But yes, [s]the earth[/s] humanity uses as much as it produces, and any shortfall has to be covered by drawing down inventory or withdrawal from strategic reserves.

DK

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', 'n')ature doesn't need us, in fact it probably will be better if we didn't exist (unless we change our overconsumption).